Knicks-Timberwolves Preview

By BRETT HUSTONPosted Mar 04 2014 5:49PM

It's difficult to believe the Minnesota Timberwolves are barely closer to a top-eight spot in the Western Conference than the New York Knicks are in the East.

But while Kevin Love has the Timberwolves looking capable of making a run, the Knicks are running out of ways to describe a season that's disintegrated into one of the most disappointing in franchise history.

Minnesota looks for a seventh win in eight games as it opens a critical four-game homestand Wednesday night against a free-falling New York team hoping to avoid an eighth straight loss.

The Knicks (21-40) were just 2 1/2 games out of the East's No. 8 spot at the All-Star break in spite of themselves, while the Timberwolves sat a full six games back and in 10th in the West.

New York has tumbled to 6 1/2 out of the final playoff spot with a seven-game skid, while winning six of seven has only allowed Minnesota (30-29) to make up one game on the West's eighth seed.

But after capping a 4-1 road trip with a 132-128 win at Denver on Monday, the Timberwolves feel they have a chance to jump into what looks like a four-team race for the conference's final three playoff spots.

"You don't have too many must-wins in the beginning of March," guard Kevin Martin said, "but we understand where we're at right now and guys had the mindset that we had to do anything we had to do to get the win."

With seven out of their final 23 against the five teams directly above them, the Timberwolves will have a chance to make up ground. But first up is a four-game homestand against a group of Eastern teams that are a combined 59 games below .500.

"For us to go 4-1 on the road trip means a lot," forward Corey Brewer said. "Now we get to go home, four games at home, and we need all four games at home."

Love is doing his part, averaging 32.9 points and shooting 46.4 percent from 3-point range during this seven-game stretch.

There's every reason to believe his tear will continue Wednesday. In the last four games he's played against New York, Love has averaged 32.5 points and 20.5 rebounds.

He had 34, 15 and five assists while Martin added 30 points in a 109-100 win at Madison Square Garden on Nov. 3.

The Knicks have surrendered an average of 112.1 points during their skid, getting outscored in the paint by 15.7 per game. They held the Pistons to 39 first-half points and led by five at the break Monday, but gave up 57 after halftime in a 96-85 defeat.

"I'm running out of comments," said Carmelo Anthony, who's averaged 32.0 points since the All-Star break.

Monday's loss opened a 12-game stretch in which the Knicks will face just one team currently in postseason position, but no club has made the playoffs in an 82-game season with fewer than 36 wins since 1995. The Knicks would have to finish 15-6 to even hit that mark.

"I gotta stay upbeat," coach Mike Woodson said. "I can never lose hope as a coach. That's just not my nature. My job is to continue to push and give guys confidence to play this game."

The Knicks are 7-37 this season when they allow 93 points or more. The Timberwolves have been held under that mark four times in 27 home games.

Anthony's teams have won eight straight in Minnesota when he's been healthy. He had 36 points in his only appearance at the Target Center with the Knicks, a 100-94 win Feb. 8, 2013, that Love missed due to hand surgery.

Copyright 2014 by STATS LLC and Associated Press. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of STATS LLC and Associated Press is strictly prohibited

Melo, Knicks snap 7-game skid, top Wolves 118-106

By JON KRAWCZYNSKIPosted Mar 05 2014 11:50PM

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) In a season full of turmoil for the New York Knicks, Raymond Felton has dealt with more of it than any other player on the team.

He struggled with injuries and ineffectiveness early in the season and was arrested on felony gun charges late last month. With all the trouble swirling around him, the point guard was just 7 for 32 in the five games since his arrest.

Felton broke out of his slump with 18 points and Carmelo Anthony scored 33 points to help the Knicks snap a seven-game losing streak with a 118-106 victory over the Minnesota Timberwolves on Wednesday night.

"If you're not there mentally, it can really mess you up," said Felton, who made 5 of 8 shots and also had eight assists and four steals. "But I'm not one to make excuses. I got a lot going on, but there's a lot of people in this world that are dealing with a lot. I can't make that excuse."

Tyson Chandler had 15 points and 14 rebounds and Amare Stoudemire added 18 points and eight boards for the Knicks, who had not won since beating New Orleans on Feb. 19.

Knicks coach Mike Woodson had a long chat with Felton on Tuesday, trying to gauge how focused his point guard was on the court with so much to deal with off it.

"I wasn't going to take him out of the lineup, but I wanted to make sure that his head was in the right place for playing," Woodson said. "We just have to continue to help him and get him through this process."

Kevin Love had 19 points and eight rebounds, but scored just one point in the second half as the Timberwolves returned from a successful West Coast road trip with a thud. Kevin Martin had 12 points on 3-for-10 shooting and the Wolves were 7 for 26 from 3-point range.

"We can't give in and say that this is a killer," Wolves coach Rick Adelman said. "I know everybody's going to say that you can't lose to the Knicks, it's a killer. ... We just have to go out and beat Detroit (on Friday). We lost this game. It's not going to be perfect. I don't worry about this being really damaging. I worry about the way we played."

Timberwolves coaches had quietly worried about opening a homestand against a team that had been playing so poorly, fearing that the breakout was coming. They were right.

The Knicks hit eight of their first 10 field goals Wednesday night and went 5 for 7 from 3-point range to open a 38-24 lead after one quarter. The lead swelled to 17 points in the second quarter as New York chewed up Minnesota's soft interior defense with pick-and-roll lobs to Chandler, a staple of their 54 victories last year.

After such a flat first half, Ricky Rubio and the Wolves came alive in the third quarter, methodically carving into the Knicks' lead. Nikola Pekovic asserted himself in the paint against Stoudemire and an emboldened Rubio scored nine points in the quarter to cut the deficit to 88-86 going into the fourth.

But Pekovic had to sit out most of the fourth quarter because of a minutes restriction placed on him to reduce the wear and tear on a sore ankle that kept him out for most of February.

"It's really frustrating because you're trying to win games, you're trying to stay relevant and everything," Adelman said. "He had it going that third quarter. We had it going with him on the floor and I had to take him out. It's just something we have to live with, but it's really hard."

Anthony and Stoudemire led a 15-2 charge to start the fourth quarter that sealed the victory. Felton hit Tim Hardaway Jr. for a soaring alley-oop moments later for a 107-92 lead.

"Even though I'm dealing with a lot of stuff off the court, I got a lot to play for right now," Felton said. "I just tried to clear my head tonight, come out and play, and have fun. This is a place where I can come and just be free."

NOTES: Pekovic finished with 17 points and six rebounds in 26 minutes and Rubio had 11 points, eight assists and six rebounds for the Wolves. ... New York's 66 points were its second-highest first half output of the season. ... J.R. Smith added 14 points, five assists and five rebounds for the Knicks.

Copyright 2014 by STATS LLC and Associated Press. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of STATS LLC and Associated Press is strictly prohibited

Notebook: Knicks 118, Wolves 106

THE FACT: The Knicks broke a seven-game losing streak and put a dent in the Wolves' playoff hopes.

THE LEAD: The New York Knicks were in top form tonight, beating the Minnesota Timberwolves 118-106 at Target Center Wednesday. The Wolves came into the game winners of seven of their past eight, inching closer to the top eight seeds in the West and hoping to take down the struggling Knicks at seven straight losses. But New York (22-40) dominated offensively from start-to-finish, scoring on their first nine possessions and never losing the lead over Minnesota (30-30).

Carmelo Anthony led the way with 33 points, including seven in the opening four minutes as the Knicks went up 19-7. He added six more to finish with 13 for the quarter as part of a big 38-24 lead. The Wolves fought back into it by the end of the third quarter, but their bench coughed up the momentum to the Knicks' starters at the start of the fourth and they couldn't recover. Kevin Love led the way with 19 points for the Wolves, who fell back to five games behind Phoenix for the final playoff spot in the West.

QUOTABLE: "We got off to another good start and we sustained it all the way through.....when they made their run, we didn't buckle. We held in there and got defensive stops." -- Knicks coach Mike Woodson

THE STAT: The Knicks are now 11-1 when shooting 50 percent or better. They are 11-39 when being held below this mark.

TURNING POINT: After falling behind by 12 in the first four minutes of the game, the Wolves steadied the ship and played the Knicks to a draw until about midway through the third quarter. Still down 11, the Wolves went on a 8-0 spurt to draw within three with the ball. But Love threw up a jump-hook airball and Anthony found Tyson Chandler for a dunk on the offensive end as the Knicks stopped the bleeding before taking control again the fourth.

QUOTABLE II: "I knew the key to our success was gonna be keeping those guys off the glass and really slowing Kevin [Love] down. I knew I was going to catch that matchup and I wanted to make it tough and not give him anything easy." -- New York's Tyson Chandler

ROOKIE WATCH: Tim Hardaway Jr. scored 11 points for the Knicks, going 3-for-6 from long range. Shabazz Muhammad played significant minutes tonight and responded big for the Wolves. He finished with 10 points on five of five shooting.

HOT: Chandler has been a beast on the boards lately. With 14 more tonight, he's now averaging 16.7 over his last seven contests, including two games with more than 20. His total matched that of the bruising duo of Love and Nikola Pekovic as he made them look like sleek small forwards in comparison.

NOT: The rest of the Wolves bench was awful tonight, though as Chase Budinger, J.J. Barea, and Dante Cunningham shot just 7-for-24 from the field. And when the Wolves finally crawled back to within two points at the end of the third quarter, the bench immediately gave up 6-0 run to put the Wolves back into an eight-point hole and they couldn't recover.

GOOD MOVE: Woodson inserted Amar'e Stoudemire into the starting line last Monday against Detroit for the first time this season, and stayed with that lineup tonight. Stoudemire was extremely active in giving the Knicks the second weapon they visualized when putting him together with Carmelo. He played 30 minutes and finished with 18 points and eight boards.

QUOTABLE III: "Two straight nights around the minutes restriction. We'll go home and see how he feels tomorrow and get him ready for Friday's game...[Stoudemire] has had his ups and downs the last few years, but he just keeps fighting."--Knicks coach Mike Woodson

INSIDE THE ARENA: A large contingent of French exchange students took in the action tonight, decked out in NBA gear and showing the increasingly international appeal of the league.

NOTABLE: Love was named Western Conference Player of the Month in February as he averaged a mind-blowing 34 points and 14.1 rebounds per game. The last player to put up comparable numbers was Moses Malone in March of 1982......The Knicks matched their season-high in first quarter scoring with 38 points.....Raymond Felton recorded a season-high four steals.